S 586 

112 I SELECTIONS FOR 

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vvll^NEBAGO COUNTY TEACHERS' 
INSTITUTE 

MARCH 26-SO, 1900 

LITERARY INTERPRETATIONS 

PROFESSOR J. E. McGILVREY 

Instructor 




HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 11 East Seventeenth Street 
Chicago : 378-388 Wabash Avenue 



T'wo COPIES n^GEiVm:}, 



CONTENTS. 

LONGFELLOW. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 

HOLMES. 

The Chambered Nautilus. 

LOWELL. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 
The First Snow-Fall. 

BRYANT. 

Thanatopsis. 

To a Waterfowl. 



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Office of tke 
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Copyright, 1900, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



SECOND COPY, 






The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 

Thi8 poem, like Evangeline^ written in hexameters, has a 
lighter movement, due to the more playful character of the nar- 
rative. A slight change of accent in the first line prepares one 
for this livelier pace, and the reader will find that the lights and 
shades of the story use whatever elasticity there is in the hex- 
ameter, crisp, varying lines alternating with the steady pulse of 
the dactyl. The poet has built upon a slight tradition which has 
come down to us from the days of the Plymouth settlement, a 
story which depicts in a succession of scenes the life of the Old 
Colony. In doing this he has not cared to follow explicitly the 
succession of events, but has been true to the general history of 
the time, and has in each picture copied faithfully the essential 
characteristics of the original. He has taken the somewhat dry 
and unimaginative chronicles of the time, and touched them with 
a poetic light and warmth, and the reader of this poem who re- 
sumes such a book as Dr. Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims 
will find the simple story of the early settlers to have gained in 
beauty. The poem was published in 1858. 

I. 

MILES STANDISH. 

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of tha 

Pilgrims, 
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive 

dwelling, 

1. The Old Colony is the name which has long been applied to 
that part of Massachusetts which was occupied by the Plymouth 
colonists whose first settlement was in 1620. Massachusetts Bay 
was the name by which was known the later collection of settle- 
ments made about Boston and Salem. 

2. The first houses of the Pilgrims were of logs fiUed in with 
mortar and covered with thatch. 



4 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan 

leather, 
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan 

Captain. 
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind 

him, and pausing i 

Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of 

warfare. 
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the cham- 
ber, — 
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of 

Damascus, 
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical 

Arabic sentence, 
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, 

musket, and matchlock. lo 

3. Cordova in Spain was celebrated for a preparation of goat- 
skin which took the name of Cordovan. Hence came cord wain, 
or Spanish tanned goat-skin, and in England shoemakers are still 
often called cordwainers. In France, too, the same word gave 
cordonnier. 

8. The corselet was a light breastplate of armor. One of 
Standish's grandsons is said to have been in possession of his coat- 
of-mail. His sword is in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society. As "the identical sword-blade used by Miles Stan- 
dish " is also in possession of the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth, 
the antiquary may take his choice between them, or credit Stan- 
dish with a change of weapons. Damascus blades are swords or 
cimeters presenting upon their surface a variegated appearance 
of watering, as white, silvery, or black veins in fine lines and fil- 
lets. Such engraved blades were common in the East, and the 
most famous came from Damascus ; the exact secret of the work- 
manship has never been fully discovered in the West. 

10. A fowling-piece is a light gun for shooting birds ; a match' 
lock was a musket, the lock of which held a match or piece o£ 
twisted rope prepared to retain fire. As late as 1687 match- 
locks were used instead of flint-locks, which had then come into 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 5 

Short of stature lie was, but strongly built and ath- 
letic, 

Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and 
sinews of iron ; 

Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was 
already 

Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in 
November. 

Near him was seated John Aid en, his friend and house- 
hold companion, 15 

Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the 
window ; 

Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complex- 
ion. 

Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, 
as the captives 

general use. In Bradford and Winslow's Journal (Young's 
Chronicles of the Ptlgrims, p. 125), we are told of a party setting 
out " with every man his musket, sword, and corselet, under the 
conduct of Captain Miles Standish." That these muskets were 
matchlocks, appears from another passage in the same journal 
(p. 142) : " Then we lighted all our matches and prepared our- 
selves, concluding that we were near their dwellings." 

15. Bradford, the historian of the Plymouth Plantation, says 
that John Alden, who was one of the Mayflower company, " was 
hired for a cooper at Southampton, where the ship victualled ; and 
being a hopeful young man, was much desired, but left to his own 
liking to go or stay when he came here [to Plymouth, that is] ; 
but he stayed and married here." In this picture of Miles Stan- 
dish and John Alden, some have professed to see a miniature 
likeness to Oliver Cromwell and John Milton. 

18. The story of the first mission to heathen England is referred 
to here. A monk named Gregory, in the sixth century, passed 
through the slave-market at Rome, and the-re amongst other cap- 
tives he saw three fair-complexioned and fair-haired boys, in 
striking contrast to the dusky captives about them. He asked 
whence they came, and was answered, " From Britain," and that 



6 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Wliom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, " Not An- 
gles but Angels." 

Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the 
Mayflower. 20 

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe 

interrupting, 
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the 

Captain of Plymouth. 
" Look at these arms," he said, " the warlike weapons 

that hang here 
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or 

inspection ! 
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flan- 
ders ; this breastplate, 25 
Well I remember the day ! once saved my life in a 

skirmish ; 
Here in front you can see the very dint of the 

bullet 
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabu- 

cero. 

they were called Angli, which was the Latin form of the name 
by which they called themselves, and from which Anglo, England* 
and English are derived. " Non Angli sed Angeli" replied Greg- 
ory ; " they have the face of angels, not of Angles, and they 
ought to be fellow heirs of heaven." Years afterward, the story 
runs, when Gregory was pope, he remembered the fair captives, 
and sent St. Augustine to carry Christianity to them. The story 
will be found at length in E, A. Freeman's Old English History 
for Children, p. 44. 

25. The history of Miles Standish is not clearly known, but he 
was a soldier in the Low Countries during the defence of the 
Netherlands against the Spanish power, and the poet has made 
much of this little knowledge that we have. 

28. Arcabucero is Spanish for archer, and the same term passed 
over, as weapons changed, into a musketeer and gunsmith. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 7 

Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of 

Miles Standish 
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the 

Flemish morasses." so 

Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up 

from his writing : 
" Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the 

speed of the bullet ; 
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and 

our weapon ! " 
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of 

the stripling : 
" See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an 

arsenal hanging ; 35 

That is because I have done it myself, and not left it 

to others. 
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excel- 
lent adage ; 
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and 

your inkhorn. 
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible 

army. 
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and 

his matchlock, 40 

38. There is some uncertainty about the derivation of the word 
inkhorn. The usual interpretation refers to the custom of scribes 
carrying ink in a horn attached to their dress, but som.e etjonol- 
ogists make it a corruption from inkern, the terminations erne 
and eron coming from the Saxon em, earn, a secret place to put 
anything in, inkern being thus a little vessel into which we put 
ink. 

39. The formation of the military company was due chiefly to 
the serious losses that befel the Pilgrims during the first winter, 
leading them to make careful provision against surprises and at- 
tacks from the Indians. 



8 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and 

pillage, 
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my sol- 
diers ! " 
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as 

the sunbeams 
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a 

moment. 
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain 

continued : 45 

" Look ! you can see from this window my brazen how- 
itzer planted 
High on the roof of the church, a preacher who speaks 

to the purpose. 
Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresistible 

logic. 
Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts of 

the heathen. 
Now we are ready, I think, for any assault of the 

Indians : so 

Let them come, if they like, and the sooner they try it 

the better, — 
Let them come if they like, be it sagamore, sachem, or 

pow-wow, 
Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or Tokamaha- 

mon ! " 

47. One of the earliest structures raised by the Pilgrims was 
a platform upon the hill overlooking the settlement, where they 
mounted five guns. They had also a common house for ren- 
dezvous, nineteen feet square, but the planting of guns upon the 
log-built meeting-house belongs to a later date. 

62. The sagamore was an Indian chief of the subordinate 
class ; the sachem a principal chief ; the pow-wow a medicine 
man or conjurer. 

53. Names of Indians who are mentioned in the early chroni- 
elea. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 9 

Long at the window lie stood, and wistfully gazed 
on the landscape, 

Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory breath 
of the east-wind, 55 

Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of 
the ocean. 

Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and 
sunshine. 

Over his countenance flitted a shadow like those on 
the landscape. 

Gloom intermingled with light ; and his voice was sub- 
dued with emotion, 

Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause he pro- 
ceeded : 60 

" Yonder there, on the hill by the sea, lies buried 
Kose Standish ; 

Beautiful rose of love, that bloomed for me by the 
wayside ! 

She was the first to die of all who came in the May- 
flower ! 

Green above her is growing the field of wheat we have 
sown there. 

Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of 
our people, 65 

Lest they should count them and see how many 
already have perished ! " 

Sadly his face he averted, and strode up and down, 
and was thoughtful. 

Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, 
and among them 

64. The dead were buried on a bluff by the water-side during 
that first terrible winter, and the marks of burial were carefully 
effaced, lest the Indians should discover how the colony had beer 
weakened. The tradition is preserved in Holmes's Annals. 



10 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and for 
binding ; 

Barriffe's Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries 
of Caesar, 70 

Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of 
London, 

And, as if guarded by these, between them was stand- 
ing the Bible. 

Musing a moment before them, Miles Standish paused, 
as if doubtful 

Which of the three he should choose for his consola- 
tion and comfort. 

Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous cam- 
paigns of the Eomans, 75 

Or the Artillery practice, designed for belligerent 
Christians. 

Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponder- 
ous Eoman, 

Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, 
and in silence 

70. The elaborate title of Standish's military book was : 
" Militarie Discipline : or the Young Artillery Man, Wherein is 
Discoursed and Shown the Postures both of Musket and Pike, 
the Exactest way, &c., Together with the Exercise of the Foot 
in their Motions, with much variety : As also, diverse and sev- 
eral Forms for the Imbatteling small or great Bodies demon- 
strated by the number of a single Company with their Reduce- 
ments. Very necessary for all such as are Studious in the Art 
Military. Whereunto is also added the Postures and Beneficiall 
Use of the Halfe-Pike joyned with the Musket. With the 
way to draw up the Swedish Brigade. By Colonel William 
Barriffe." Barriffe was a Puritan, and added to his title-page : 
" Psalmes 144 : 1. Blessed be the Lord my Strength which 
teacheth my hands to warre and my fingers to fight." 

71. Goldinge was a voluminous translator, and his translation 
of Ovid's Metamorphoses was highly regarded. He was patron- 
ized by Sir Philip Sidney. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 11 

Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks 

thick on the margin, 
Like the trample of feet, proclaimed the battle was 

hottest. 80 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen 

of the stripling, 
Busily writing epistles important, to go by the May- 
flower, 
Keady to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, 

God willing ! 
Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible 

winter, 
Letters written by Alden, and full of the name of 

Priscilla, 85 

Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden 

Priscilla ! 

II. 

LOVE AND FKIENDSHIP. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen 

of the stripling. 
Or an occasional sigh from the laboring heart of the 

Captain, 
Reading the marvellous words and achievements of 

Julius Caesar. 
After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hand, 

palm downwards, so 

82. The Mayflower began her return voyage April 5, 1621. 
Not a single one of the emigrants returned in her, in spite of the 
" terrible winter." 

85. Among the names of the Mayflower company are those of 
" Mr. William MuUines and his wife, and 2 children, Joseph and 
Priscila ; and a servant, Robart Carter." 



12 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Heavily on the page : " A wonderful man was this 
Caesar ! 

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fel- 
low 

Who could both write and fight, and in both was 
equally skilful ! " 

Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the 
comely, the youthful : 

" Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen 
and his weapons. 95 

Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could 
dictate 

Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his 
memoirs." 

" Truly," continued the Captain, not heeding or hear- 
ing the other, 

" Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Csesar ! 

Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village, 100 

Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right 
when he said it. 

Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many 
times after ; 

Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities 
he conquered ; 

He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has re- 
corded ; 

100. " In his journey, as he was crossing the Alps and passing 
by a small village of the barbarians with but few inhabitants, and 
those wretchedly poor, his companions asked the question among 
themselves by way of mockery if there were any canvassing for 
OiTices there ; any contention which should be uppermost, or feuds 
of great men one against another. To which Csesar made an- 
swer seriously, ' For my part I hadrather be the first man among 
these fellows, than the second man in Rome.' " Plutarch's Lif& 
of Ca^saVi A. H. Clough's translation. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 13 

Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Bru- 
tus ! ' 106 

Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion 

in Flanders, 
When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front 

giving way too, 
And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so 

closely together 
There was no room for their swords ? Why, he seized 

a shield from a soldier, 
Put himself straight at the head of his troops, and 

commanded the captains, uo 

Calling on each by his name, to order forward the 

ensigns ; 
Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for 

their weapons ; 
So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other. 
That 's what I always say ; if you wish a thing to be 

well done, 
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to 

others ! " us 

All was silent again ; the Captain continued his 
reading. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen 
of the stripling 

Writing epistles important to go next day by the 
Mayflower, 

Filled with the name and the fame of the Puritan 
maiden Priscilla ; 

Every sentence began or closed with the name of Pris- 
cilla, 129 

113. The account of this battle will be found in Ccesar*s Com- 
mentaries, book II. ch. 10. 



14 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the 
secret. 

Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the name 
of Priscilla ! 

Finally closing his book, with a bang of the ponderous 
cover. 

Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding 
his musket, 

Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Cap- 
tain of Plymouth ; 125 

" When you have finished your work, I have something 
important to tell you. 

Be not however in haste ; I can wait ; I shall not be 
impatient 1 " 

Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his 
letters. 

Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful atten- 
tion ; 

" Speak ; for whenever you speak, I am always ready 
to listen, 139 

Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles 
Standish." 

Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and 
culling his phrases : 

" 'T is not good for a man to be alone, say the Scrip- 
tures. 

This I have said before, and again and again I repeat 
it; ^ 

Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say 

it. 135 

Since Eose Standish died, my life has been weary and 
dreary ; 

Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friend- 
ship. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 15 

Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden 

Priscilla. 
She is alone in the world ; her father and mother and 

brother 
Died in the winter together ; I saw her going and com- 
ing, 140 
Now to the grave of the dead, and now to the bed of 

the dying, 
Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, 

that if ever 
There were angels on earth, as there are angels in 

heaven, 
Two have I seen and known ; and the angel whose 

name is Priscilla 
Holds in my desolate life the place which the other 

abandoned. 145 

Long have I cherished the thought, but never have 

dared to reveal it. 
Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the 

most part. 
Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of 

Plymouth, 
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but 

of actions. 
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart 

of a soldier. iso 

Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my 

meaning ; 
I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases. 

139. " Mr. Molines, and his wife, his sone and his servant, dyed 
the first winter. Only his daughter Priscila survived and mar- 
ried with John Alden, who are both living and have 11 chil* 
dren." Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation^ p. 452. 



16 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

You, wlio are bred as a scholar, can say it in elegant 

language. 
Such as you read in your books of the pleadings and 

wooings of lovers, 
Such as you think best adapted to win the heart 

of a maiden." 155 

When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, 

taciturn stripling. 
All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewil- 
dered, 
Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject 

with lightness. 
Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still 

in his bosom. 
Just as a timepiece stops in a house that is stricken by 

lightning, 160 

Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered 

than answered : 
" Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle 

and mar it ; 
If you would have it well done, — I am only repeating 

your maxim, — 
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to 

others ! " 
But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn 

from his purpose, i65 

Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain 

of Plymouth : 
" Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gain- 
say it ; 
But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder 

for nothing. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 17 

Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of 

phrases. 
I can marcli up to a fortress and summon the place to 

surrender, 170 

But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare 

not. 
I 'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of 

a cannon. 
But of a thundering ' No ! ' point-blank from the 

mouth of a woman. 
That I confess I 'm afraid of, nor am I ashamed to 

confess it ! 
So you must grant my request, for you are an ele- 
gant scholar, its 
Having the graces of speech, and skill in the turning 

of phrases." 
Taking the hand of his friend, who still was reluctant 

and doubtful. 
Holding it long in his own, and pressing it kindly, he 

added : 
" Though I have spoken thus lightly, yet deep is the 

feeling that prompts me ; 
Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of 

our friendship ! " iso 

Then made answer John Alden: "The name of 

friendship is sacred ; 
What you demand in that name, I have not the power 

to deny you ! " 
So the strong will prevailed, subduing and moulding* 

the gentler. 
Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on 

his errand. 



18 HENRY WADSWORTR LONGFLjuLOW. 

III. 
THE lover's errand. 

So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his 
errand, isa 

Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of 
the forest, 

Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins 
were building 

Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of 
verdure, 

Peaceful, aerial cities of joy and affection and free- 
dom. 

All around him was calm, but within him commotion 
and conflict, 190 

Love contending with friendship, and self with each 
generous impulse. 

To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving 
and dashing. 

As in a foundering ship, with every roll of the vessel, 

Washes the bitter sea, the merciless surge of the 
ocean ! 

*'Must I relinquish it all," he cried with a wild 
lamentation, — 195 

" Must I relinquish it all, the joy, the hope, the illu- 
sion? 

Was it for this I have loved, and waited, and wor- 
shipped in silence ? 

Was it for this I have followed the flying feet and the 
shadow 

188. Compare the populous nests in Evangfeline, 1. 136. In 
the hanging gardens of verdure there is reference to the famous 
hanging gardens of Babylon. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH. 19 

Over the wintry sea, to the desolate shores of New 

England ? 
Truly the heart is deceitful, and out of its depths of 

corruption 200 

Kise, like an exhalation, the misty phantoms of passion ; 
Angels of light they seem, but are only delusions of 

Satan. 
All is clear to me now ; I feel it, I see it distinctly ! 
This is the hand of the Lord ; it is laid upon me in 

anger, 
For I have followed too much the heart's desires and 

devices, 205 

Worshipping Astaroth blindly, and impious idols of 

Baal. 
This is the cross I must bear ; the sin and the swift 

retribution. " 

So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went 

on his errand ; 
Crossing the brook at the ford, where it brawled over 

pebble and shallow, 
Gathering still, as he went, the Mayflowers blooming 

around him, 210 

Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonderful 

sweetness, 

206. Astaroth, in the Old Testament Scripture, is the form 
used for the principal female divinity, as Baal of the principal 
male divinity of the Phoenicians. 

210. The Mayflower is the well-known Epigoea repens, some- 
times also called the Trailing Arbutus. The name Mayflower 
was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic 
ship shows, but it was applied by the English, and is still, to the 
hawthorn. Its use here in connection with Epigcea repens dates 
from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims 
so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English 
flower associations. 



20 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Children lost in tlie woods, and covered with leaves in 

their slumber. 
" Puritan flowers," he said, " and the type of Puritan 

maidens. 
Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Pris- 

cilla ! 
So I will take them to her ; to Priscilla the Mayflower 

of Plymouth, 21s 

Modest and simple and sweet, as a parting gift will I 

take them ; 
Breathing their silent farewells, as they fade and 

wither and perish. 
Soon to be thrown away as is the heart of the giver." 
So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on 

his errand ; 
Came to an open space, and saw the disk of the 

ocean, 220 

Sailless, sombre and cold with the comfortless breath 

of the east-wind ; 
Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a 

meadow ; 
Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of 

Priscilla 
Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan 

anthem, 

224. The words in the version which Priscilla used sound some- 
what rude to modern ears, but the music is substantially what we 
know as Old Hundred. The poet tells us (1. 231) that it was 
Ainsworth's translation which she used. Ainsworth became a 
Brownist in 1590, suffered persecution, ^nd found refuge in Hol- 
land, where he published learned commentaries and translations. 
His version of Psalm c. is as follows '.— 

1. Bow to Jehovah all the earth. 

2. Serve ye Jehovah with gladness ; before him oome with singing mirth. 

3. Know that Jehovah he God is. It 's he that made us anc>^ not we, his floek and! 

sheep of his feeding. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 21 

Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the 
Psalmist, 225 

Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comfort- 
ing many. 

Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of 
the maiden 

Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a 
snow-drift 

Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the raven- 
ous spindle, 

While with her foot on the treadle she guided the 
wheel in its motion. 230 

Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of 
Ainsworth, 

Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music to- 
gether, 

Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of 
a churchyard. 

Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the 
verses. 

Such was the book from whose pages she sang the old 
Puritan anthem, 235 

She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest, 

Making the humble house and the modest apparel of 
homespun 

Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of 
her being ! 

Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen and cold 
and relentless, 

Thoughts of what might have been, and the weight 
and woe of his errand ; 240 

4. Oh, with confession enter ye his gates, his courtyard with praising. Confess 

to him, bless ye his name. 

5. Because Jehovah he good ia ; his mercy ever is the same, and his faith unto 

all ages. 



22 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

All tlie dreams that had faded, and all the hopes that 
had vanished, 

All his life henceforth a dreary and tenantless man- 
sion. 

Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrowful faces. 

Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely he said it, 

" Let not him that putteth his hand to the plough look 
backwards ; 24a 

Though the ploughshare cut through the flowers of 
life to its fountains. 

Though it pass o'er the graves of the dead and the 
hearths of the living. 

It is the will of the Lord ; and his mercy endureth for- 



So he entered the house ; and the hum of the wheel 

and the singing 
Suddenly ceased ; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on 

the threshold, 250 

Rose as he entered and gave him her hand, in signal 

of welcome. 
Saying, " I knew it was you, when I heard your step 

in the passage ; 
For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and 

spinning." 
Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of 

him had been mingled 
Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of 

the maiden, 255 

Silent before her he stood, and gave her the flowers for 

an answer, 
Finding no words for his thought. He remembered 

that day in the winter. 
After the first great snow, when he broke a path from 

the village, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH. 23 

Reeling and plunging along through the drifts that 

encumbered the doorway, 
Stamping the snow from his feet as he entered the 

house, and Priscilla 260 

Laughed at his snowy locks, and gave him a seat by 

the fireside, 
Grateful and pleased to know he had thought of her 

in the snow-storm. 
Had he but spoken then ! perhaps not in vain had he 

spoken ; 
Now it was all too late ; the golden moment had van- 
ished ! 
So he stood there abashed, and gave her the flowers 

for an answer. 265 

Then they sat down and talked of the birds and the 
beautiful Spring-time ; 

Talked of their friends at home, and the Mayflower 
that sailed on the morrow. 

" I have been thinking all day, " said gently the Pu- 
ritan maiden, 

" Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the 
hedge-rows of England, — 

They are in blossom now, and the country is all like 
a garden ; 270 

Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark 
and the linnet. 

Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neigh- 
bors 

Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip to- 
gether. 

And, at the end of the street, the village church, 
with the ivy 

Climbing the old gray tower, and the quiet graves in 
the churchyard. 275 



24 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my 

religion ; 
Still my heart is so sad, that I wish myself back in 

Old England. 
You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it : I 

almost 
Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely 

and wretched." 

Thereupon answered the youth : " Indeed I do not 

condemn you ; 280 

Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in this 

terrible winter. 
Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to 

lean on ; 
So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer 

of marriage 
Made by a good man and true. Miles Standish the 

Captain of Plymouth ! " 

Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer 
of letters, — 285 

Did not embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful 
phrases. 

But came straight to the point, and blurted it out like 
a school-boy ; 

Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it 
more bluntly. 

Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puri- 
tan maiden 

liooked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with won- 
der, 290 

Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned her and 
rendered her speechless ; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH, 25 

Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous 

silence : ' 

" If the great Captain of Plj^mouth is so very eager to 

wed me, 
Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble 

to woo me ? 
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth 

the winning ! " 295 

Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing 

the matter. 
Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain 

was busy, — 
Had no time for such things ; — such things ! the 

words grating harshly 
Fell on the ear of PrisciHa ; and swift as a flash she 

made answer : 
"Has he no time for such things, as you call it, 

before he is married, 300 

Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the 

wedding ? 
That is the way with you men ; you don't understand 

us, you cannot. 
When you have made up your minds, after thinking 

of this one and that one. 
Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing one with 

another. 
Then you make known your desire, with abrupt and 

sudden avowal, 305 

And are offended and hurt, and indignant perhaps, 

that a woman 
Does not respond at once to a love that she never sus- 
pected, 
Does not attain at a bound the height to which you 

have been climbing. 



26 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

This is not right nor just ; for surely a woman's af- 
fection 

Is not a tiling to be asked for, and had for only the 
asking. sio 

When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but 
shows it. 

Had he but waited awhile, had he only showed that 
he loved me, 

Even this Captain of yours — who knows ? — at last 
might have won me, 

Old and rough as he is ; but now it never can hap* 
pen." 

Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of 
Priscilla, sis 

Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, 
expanding ; 

Spoke of his courage and skill, and of all his battles 
in Flanders, 

How with the people of God he had chosen to suffer 
affliction. 

How, in return for his zeal, they had made him Cap- 
tain of Plymouth ; 

He was a gentleman born, could trace his pedigree 
plainly 320 

Back to Hugh Standish of Duxbury Hall, in Lanca- 
shire, England, 

321. " There are at this time in England two ancient families 
of the name, one of Standish Hall, and the other of Duxbury 
Park, both in Lancashire, who trace their descent from a com- 
mon ancestor, Ralph de Standish, living in 1221. There seems 
always to have been a military spirit in the family. Froissart, 
relating in his Chronicles the memorable meeting between Rich- 
ard II. and Wat Tyler, says that after the rebel was struck from 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 27 

Who was the son of Ralph, and the grandson of 
Thurston de Standish ; 

Heir unto vast estates, of which he was basely de- 
frauded, 

Still bore the family arms, and had for his crest a 
cock argent 

Combed and wattled gules, and all the rest of the 
blazon. 325 

He was a man of honor, o£ noble and generous na- 
ture ; 

Though he was rough, he was kindly ; she knew how 
during the winter 

He had attended the sick, with a hand as gentle as 
woman's ; 

Somewhat hasty and hot, he could not deny it, and 
headstrong. 

Stern as a soldier might be, but hearty, and placable 
always, 330 

Not to be laughed at and scorned, because he was little 
of stature ; 

For he was great of heart, magnanimous, courtly, 
courageous ; 

Any woman in Plymouth, nay, any woman in Eng- 
land, 

his horse by William Walworth, ' then a squyer of the kynges 
alyted, called John Standysshe, and he drewe out his sworde, 
and put into Wat Tyler's helye, and so he dyed.' For this act 
Standish was knighted. In 1415 another Sir John Standish 
fought at the battle of Agincourt. From his giving the name of 
Duxbury to the town where he settled, near Plymouth, and call- 
ing his eldest son Alexander (a common name in the Standish 
family), I have no doubt that Miles was a scion from this ancient 
and warlike stock." Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, foot- 
note, p. 125. 

325. Terms of heraldry. Argent is silver and gules red. 



28 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Miglit be happy and proud to be called tbe wife of 
Miles Standish ! 

But as lie warmed and glowed, in his simple and 

eloquent language, 335 

Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his 

rival, 
Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes overrunning 

with laughter, 
Said, in a tremulous voice, " Why don't you speak for 

yourself, John ? " 



IV. 

JOHN ALDEN. 

Into the open air John Alden, perplexed and bewil- 
dered, 

Eushed like a man insane, and wandered alone by the 
sea-side ; 340 

Paced up and down the sands, and bared his head to 
the east-wind, 

Cooling his heated brow, and the fire and fever within 
him. 

Slowly, as out of the heavens, with apocalyptical splen- 
dors. 

Sank the City of God, in the vision of John the Apos- 
tle, 

So, with its cloudy walls of chrysolite, jasper, and 
sapphire, 245 

Sank the broad red sun, and over its turrets uplifted 

Glimmered the golden reed of the angel who measured 
the city. 
344. See the last chapter of the Book of Revelation. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 29 

" Welcome, O wind of the East ! " he exclaimed in 
his wild exultation, 

*' Welcome, O wind of the East, from the caves of the 
misty Atlantic ! 

Blowing o'er fields of dulse, and measureless meadows 
of sea-grass, 350 

Blowing o'er rocky wastes, and the grottos and gardens 
of ocean ! 

Lay thy cold, moist hand on my burning forehead, 
and wrap me 

Close in thy garments of mist, to allay the fever with- 
in me ! " 

Like an awakened conscience, the sea was moaning 

and tossing, 
Beating remorseful and loud the mutable sands of the 

sea-shore. 355 

Fierce in his soul was the struggle and tumult of pas- 
sions contending ; 
Love triumphant and crowned, and friendship wounded 

and bleeding, 
Passionate cries of desire, and importunate pleadings 

of duty ! 
" Is it my fault," he said, " that the maiden has chosen 

between us ? 
Is it my fault that he failed, — my fault that I am the 

victor ? " 360 

Then within him there thundered a voice, like the 

voice of the Prophet : 
" It hath displeased the Lord ! " --.and he thought of 

David's transgression, 
Bathsheba's beautiful face, and his friend in the front 

of the battle I 



30 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shame and confusion of guilt, and abasement and seK- 
condemnation, 

Overwhelmed him at once ; and he cried in the deep- 
est contrition : 365 

" It hath displeased the Lord ! It is the temptation 
of Satan ! " 

Then, uplifting his head, he looked at the sea, and 

beheld there 
Dimly the shadowy form of the Mayflower riding at 

anchor, 
Eocked on the rising tide, and ready to sail on the 

morrow ; 
Heard the voices of men through the mist, the rattle 

of cordage 370 

Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the mate, and the 

sailors' " Ay, ay, Sir ! " 
Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the dripping air of 

the twilight. 
Still for a moment he stood, and listened, and stared 

at the vessel. 
Then went hurriedly on, as one who, seeing a phantom, 
Stops, then quickens his pace, and follows the beckon- 
ing shadow. 375 
" Yes, it is plain to me now," he murmured ; " the 

hand of the Lord is 
Leading me out of the land of darkness, the bondage 

of error. 
Through the sea, that shall lift the walls of its waters 

around me, 
Hiding me, cutting me off, from the cruel thoughts 

that pursue me. 
Back will I go o'er the ocean, this dreary land will 

abandon, aao 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 31 

Her whom I may not love, and him whom my heart 

has offended. 
Better to be in my grave in the green old churchyard 

in England, 
Close by my mother's side, and among the dust of my 

kindred ; 
Better be dead and forgotten, than living in shame 

and dishonor ! 
Sacred and safe and unseen, in the dark of the narrow 

chamber sas 

With me my secret shall lie, like a buried jewel that 

glimmers 
Bright on the hand that is dust, in the chambers of 

silence and darkness, — 
Yes, as the marriage ring of the great espousal here- 
after!" 

Thus as he spake, he turned, in the strength of his 

strong resolution. 
Leaving behind him the shore, and hurried along in 

the twilight, 390 

Through the congenial gloom of the forest silent and 

sombre. 
Till he beheld the lights in the seven houses of 

Plymouth, 
Shining like seven stars in the dusk and mist of the 

evening. 
Soon he entered his door, and found the redoubtable 

Captain 

392. In a letter written by Edward Winslow, December 11, 
1621, to a friend in England, he says : " You shall understand 
that in this little time that a few of us have been here, we have 
built seven dwelling-houses and four for the use of the plauta^ 
tion." Young's Chronicles, p. 230- 



32 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Sitting alone, and absorbed in the martial pages of 
Caesar, 395 

Figbting some great campaign in Hainault or Brabant 
or Flanders. 

" Long have you been on your errand," he said with a 
cheery demeanor. 

Even as one who is waiting an answer, and fears not 
the issue. 

" Not far off is the house, although the woods are be- 
tween us; 

But you have lingered so long, that while you were 
going and coming . 400 

I have fought ten battles and sacked and demolished a 
city. 

Come, sit down, and in order relate to me all that has 
happened." 

Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous 
adventure 

From beginning to end, minutely, just as it hap- 
pened ; 

How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in 
his courtship, 405 

Only smoothing a little, and softening down her re- 
fusal. 

But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had 
spoken. 

Words so tender and cruel, " Why don't you speak 
for yourself, John ? " 

Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on 
the floor, till his armor 

Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of 
sinister omen. 410 

All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explo- 
sion. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 33 

E'en as a hand-grenade, that scatters destruction 

around it. 
Wildly he shouted, and loud : " John Alden ! you 

have betrayed me ! 
Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, 

defrauded, betrayed me ! 
One of my ancestors ran his sword through the heart 

of Wat Tyler ; 415 

Who shall prevent me from running my own through 

the heart of a traitor ? 
Yours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason to 

friendship ! 
You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and 

loved as a brother ; 
You, who have fed at my board, and drunk at my cup, 

to whose keeping 
I have intrusted my honor, my thoughts the most 

sacred and secret, — 420 

You too, Brutus ! ah, woe to the name of friendship 

hereafter ! 
Brutus was Caesar's friend, and you were mine, but 

henceforward 
Let there be nothing between us save war, and impla- 
cable hatred ! " 

So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about 
in the chamber. 

Chafing and choking with rage ; like cords were the 
veins on his temples. 425 

But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the 
doorway, 

Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent im- 
portance, 

Humors of danger and war and hostile incursions of 
Indians I 



34 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further 

question or parley, 
Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its 

scabbard of iron, 430 

Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning 

fiercely, departed. 
Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the 

scabbard 
Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the 

distance. 
Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the 

darkness, 
Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with 

the insult, 435 

Lifted his eyes to the heavens, and, folding his hands 

as in childhood, 
Frayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth 

in secret. 

Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful 
away to the council, 

Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his 
coming ; 

Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in de- 
portment, 440 

Only one of them old, the hill that was nearest to 
heaven, 

Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent Elder of 
Plymouth. 

442. Elder William Brewster. The elder of the Pilgrim 
Church was the minister who taught and administered the sac- 
raments. He was assisted also by an officer named the ruling 
elder, whose function was much the same as that of the deacon in 
Congregational churches at the present day. The teaching elder 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 35 

God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for 

this planting, 
Then had sifted the wheat, as the living seed of a 

nation ; 
So say the chronicles old, and such is the faith of the 

people ! 445 

Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern 

and defiant. 
Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious in 

aspect ; 
While on the table before them was lying unopened a 

Bible, 
Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed in 

Holland, 
And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake 

glittered, 450 

included ruling among his duties ; the ruling elder sometimes 
taught in the absence of his superior ; the teaching elder was 
maintained by the people ; the ruling elder was not withdrawn 
from other occupations, and maintained himself. Brewster was 
the ruling elder in the little Plymouth Church, but in the absence 
of Robinson was also their teacher. 

443- In Stoughton's election sermon of 1668 occurs the first 
use, apparently, of this oft-quoted phrase : " God sifted a whole 
nation that he might send a choice grain over into tliis wilder- 
ness." 

449. The Genevan Bible was the favorite version of the Puri- 
tans, and was clung to long after the King James version had 
been issued. Owing to obstacles in England, the Bible was fre- 
quently printed on the Continent, once at any rate at Amster- 
dam. 

450. As a matter of history, the first recorded instance of the 
rattlesnake skin challenge was in January, 1622, when Tisquan- 
tum the Indian brought a defiance from Canonicus, and the gov- 
ernor returned the skin stuffed with bullets. Holmes, in his 
Annals (i. 177), reminds the reader : " There is a remarkable co- 
incidence in the form of this challenge given by the Scythian 



BQ HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Filled, like a quiver, with arrows: a signal and chal- 
lenge of warfare. 

Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy- 
tongues of defiance. 

This Miles Standish beheld, as he entered, and heard 
them debating 

What were an answer befitting the hostile message, 
and menace. 

Talking of this and of that, contriving, suggesting, 
objecting ; 453 

One voice only for peace, and that the voice of the 
Elder, 

Judging it wise and well that some at least were con- 
verted, 

Eather than any were slain, for this was but Christian 
behavior ! 

Then out spake Miles Standish, the stalwart Captain 
of Plymouth, 

Muttering deep in his throat, for his voice was husky 
with anger, 46o 

" What ! do you mean to make war with milk and the 
water of roses ? 

Is it to shoot red squirrels you have your howitzer 
planted 

There on the roof of the church, or is it to shoot red 
devils ? 

Truly the only tongue that is understood by a savage 

prince to Darius. Five arrows made a part of the present sent 
by his herald to the Persian king. The manner of declaring war 
by the Aracaunian Indians of South America was by sending 
from town to town an arrow clinched in a dead man's hand." 

457. The poet here has used the words of John Kobinson to 
the colonists after the first encounter with the Indians : " Oh, 
how happy a thing had it been, if you had converted some be- 
fore you had killed any ! " 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 37 

Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from the mouth 
of the canuon ! " 465 

Thereupon answered and said the excellent Elder of 
Plymouth, 

Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this irreverent lan- 
guage : 

" Not so thought Saint Paul, nor yet the other Apos° 
ties ; 

Not from the cannon's mouth were the tongues of fire 
they spake with ! " 

But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the Captain, 470 

Who had advanced to the table, and thus continued 
discoursing : 

" Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it per- 
taineth. 

War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is 
righteous, 

Sweet is the smell of powder ; and thus I answer the 
challenge ! " 

Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sudden, 
contemptuous gesture, 475 

Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder 
and bullets 

Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the sav- 
age. 

Saying, in thundering tones : " Here, take it ! this is 
your answer ! " 

Silently out of the room then glided the glistening 
savage. 

Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming himself like a 
serpent, 480 

W^inding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths of 
the forest. 



38 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

V. 

THE SAILING OF THE MAYFLOWER. 

Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists uprose 

from the meadows, 
There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village 

of Plymouth ; 
Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperar 

tive, " Forward ! " 
Given in tone suppressed, a tramp of feet, and then 

silence. 485 

Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly out of the 

village. 
Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of his valorous 

army, 
Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, friend of the 

white men. 
Northward marching to quell the sudden revolt of the 

savage. 
Giants they seemed in the mist, or the mighty men of 

King David ; 490 

Giants in heart they were, who believed in God and 

the Bible, — • 
Ay, who believed in the smiting of Midianites and 

Philistines. 
Over them gleamed far off the crimson banners of 

morning ; 
Under them loud on the sands, the serried billows, ad- 
vancing. 
Fired along the line, and in regular order retreated. 495 

Many a mile had they marched, when at length the 
village of Plymouth 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 39 

Woke from its sleep, and arose, intent on its manifold 
labors. 

Sweet was the air and soft ; and slowly the smoke 
from the chimneys 

Rose over roofs of thatch, and pointed steadily east- 
ward ; 

Men came forth from the doors, and paused and talked 
of the weather, 500 

Said that the wind had changed, and was blowing fair 
for the Mayflower ; 

Talked of their Captain's departure, and all the dan- 
gers that menaced. 

He being gone, the town, and what should be done in 
his absence. 

Merrily sang the birds, and the tender voices of 
women 

Consecrated with hymns the common cares of the 
household. 505 

Out of the sea rose the sun, and the billows rejoiced 
at his coming ; 

Beautiful were his feet on the purple tops of the moun- 
tains ; 

Beautiful on the sails of the Mayflower riding at 
anchor, 

Battered and blackened and worn by all the storms of 
the winter. 

Loosely against her masts was hanging and flapping 
her canvas, 510 

Rent by so many gales, and patched by the hands of 
the sailors. 

Suddenly from her side, as the sun rose over the 
ocean, 

Darted a puff of smoke, and floated seaward ; anon rang 

Loud over field and forest the cannon's roar, and the 
echoes 



40 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Heard and repeated the sound, the signal-gun of de- 
parture ! 515 

Ah ! but with louder echoes replied the hearts of the 
people ! 

Meekly, in voices subdued, the chapter was read from 
the Bible, 

Meekly the prayer was begun, but ended in fervent 
entreaty ! 

Then from their houses in haste came forth the Pil- 
grims of Plymouth, 

Men and women and children, all hurrying down to the 
sea-shore, 520 

Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to the May- 
flower, 

Homeward bound o'er the sea, and leaving them here 
in the desert. 

Foremost among them was Alden. All night he 

had lain without slumber, 
Turning and tossing about in the heat and unrest of 

his fever. 
He had beheld Miles Standish, who came back late 

from the council, 525 

Stalking into the room, and heard him mutter and 

murmur. 
Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and sometimes it 

sounded like swearing. 
Once he had come to the bed, and stood there a mo- 
ment in silence ; 
Then he had turned away, and said : " I will not 

awake him ; 
Ijet him sleep on, it is best ; for what is the use of 

more talking ! " 530 

Then he extinguished the light, and threw himself 

down on his pallet, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 41 

Pressed as he was, and ready to start at the break of 

the morning, — 
Covered himself with the cloak he had worn in his 

campaigns in Flanders, — 
Slept as a soldier sleeps in his bivouac, ready for 

action. 
But with the dawn he arose ; in the twilight Alden 

beheld hira 535 

Put on his corselet of steel, and all the rest of his 

armor, 
Buckle about his waist his trusty blade of Damascus, 
Take from the corner his musket, and so stride out of 

the chamber. 
Often the heart of the youth had burned and yearned 

to embrace him, 
Often his lips had essayed to speak, imploring for 

pardon ; 540 

All the old friendship came back with its tender and 

grateful emotions ; 
But his pride overmastered the nobler nature within 

him, — 
Pride, and the sense of his wrong, and the burning 

fire of the insult. 
So he beheld his friend departing in anger, but spake 

not, 
Saw him go forth to danger, perhaps to death, and he 

spake not ! 545 

Then he arose from his bed, and heard what the peo- 
ple were saying, 
Joined in the talk at the door, with Stephen and 

Richard and Gilbert, 

547. The names are not taken at random. Stephen Hopkins, 
Richard Warren, and Gilbert Winslow were all among the May- 
flower passengers, and were alive at this time. 



42 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Joined in the morning prayer, and in the reading of 

Scripture, 
And, with the others, in haste went hurrying down to 

the sea-shore, 
Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their 

feet as a doorstep 550 

Into a world unknown, — the corner-stone of a nation ! 

There with his boat was the Master, already a little 

impatient 
Lest he should lose the tide, or the wind might shift 

to the eastward, 
Square-built, hearty, and strong, with, an odor of ocean 

about him, 
Speaking with this one and that, and cramming letters 

and parcels 555 

Into his pockets capacious, and messages mingled to- 
gether 
Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly bewil- 
dered. 
Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed on 

the gunwale. 
One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with 

the sailors. 
Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and eager for 

starting. 560 

He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his 

anguish. 
Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel is 

or canvas, 
Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would rise 

and pursue him. 
But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form of 

Priscilla 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 43 

Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all that 
was passing. «» 

Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his in- 
tention. 

Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring, 
and patient, 

That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled from 
its purpose. 

As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is 
destruction. 

Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mysteri- 
ous instincts ! 570 

Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are mo- 
ments. 

Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall 
adamantine ! 

" Here I remain ! " he exclaimed, as he looked at the 
heavens above him. 

Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the 
mist and the madness, 

Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was staggering 
headlong. 575 

"Yonder snow-white cloud, that floats in the ether 
above me. 

Seems like a hand that is pointing and beckoning over 
the ocean. 

There is another hand, that is not so spectral and 
ghost-like, 

Holding me, drawing me back, and clasping mine for 
protection. 

Float, O hand of cloud, and vanish away in the 
ether ! m 

Roll thyself up like a fist, to threaten and daunt me i 
I heed not 



44 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Either your warning or menace, or any omen of evil ! 
There is no land so sacred, no air so pure and so 

wholesome. 
As is the air she breathes, and the soil that is pressed 

by her footsteps. 
Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible 

presence 585 

Hover around her forever, protecting, supporting her 

weakness ; 
Yes ! as my foot was the first that stepped on this 

rock at the landing. 
So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at the 

leaving ! " 

Meanwhile the Master alert, but with dignified air 

and important, 
Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind and 

the weather, 590 

Walked about on the sands, and the people crowded 

around him 
Saying a few last words, and enforcing his careful re- 
membrance. 
Then, taking each by the hand, as if he were grasping 

a tiller. 
Into the boat he sprang, and in haste shoved off to his 

vessel, 
Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry and 

flurry, 595 

Glad to be gone from a land of sand and sickness and 

sorrow. 
Short allowance of victual, and plenty of nothing but 

Gospel ! 
Lost in the sound of the oars was the last farewell of 

the Pilgrims. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 45 

strong hearts and true ! not one went back in the 

Mayflower ! 
No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this 

ploughing ! 600 

Soon were heard on board the shouts and songs of 

the sailors 
Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting the ponder- 
ous anchor. 
Then the yards were braced, and all sails set to the 

west-wind. 
Blowing steady and strong ; and the Mayflower sailed 

from the harbor, 
Rounded the point of the Gurnet, and leaving far to 

the southward 605 

Island and cape of sand, and the Field of the First 

Encounter, 
Took the wind on her quarter, and stood for the open 

Atlantic, 
Borne on the send of the sea, and the swelling hearts 

of the Pilgrims. 

Long in silence they watched the receding sail of 
the vessel, 

605. The Gurnet, or Gurnet's Nose, is a headland connecting- 
with Marshfield by a beach about seven miles long. On its 
southern extremity are two light-houses which light the entrance 
to Plymouth Harbor. 

606. " So after we had given God thanks for our deliverance, 
we took our shallop and went on our journey, and called this 
place The First Encounter." Bradford and Winslow's Journal 
in Young's Chronicles, p. 159. The plafe on the Eastham shore 
marked the spot where the Pilgrims had their first encounter 
with the Indians, December 8, 1620. A party under Tliles 
Standish was exploring the country while the Mayflower was at 
anchor in Provincetown Harbor. 



46 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Much endeared to them all, as something living and 

human ; eio 

Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt in a vis- 
ion prophetic, 
Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Ply- 
mouth 
Said, " Let us pray ! " and they prayed, and thanked 

the Lord and took courage. 
Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, 

and above them 
Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, 

and their kindred 6i5 

Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the 

prayer that they uttered. 
Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern verge of the 

ocean 
Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a 

graveyard ; 
Buried beneath it lay forever all hope of escaping. 
Lo ! as they turned to depart, they saw the form of an 

Indian, 620 

Watching them from the hill ; but while they spake 

with each other, 
Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, 

" Look I " he had vanished. 
So they returned to their homes ; but Alden lingered 

a little. 
Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash of 

the billows 
Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash 

of the sunshine, 625 

Like the spirit of God, moving visibly over the 

waters. 

626. See Genesis i. 2. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 4T 

VI. 

PRISCILLA. 

Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the shore 
of the ocean, 

Thinking of many things, and most of all of Pris= 
cilia ; 

And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like 
the loadstone. 

Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its na- 
ture, 630 

Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing 
beside him. 

"Are you so much offended, you will not speak to 

me ? " said she. 
" Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you 

were pleading 
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive 

and wayward. 
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps 

of decorum ? ess 

Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, 

for saying 
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never 

unsay it ; 
For there are moments in life, when the heart is sc 

full of emotion, 
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like 

a pebble 
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its se- 
cret, 6iO 



48 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered 
together. 

Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of 
Miles Standish, 

Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects into 
virtues. 

Praising his courage and strength, and even his fight- 
ing in Flanders, 

As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a 
woman, 645 

Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting 
your hero. 

Therefore I spake as 1 did, by an irresistible im- 
pulse. 

You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friend- 
ship between us. 

Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily 
broken ! " 

Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the 
friend of Miles Standish : eso 

" I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was 
angry. 

Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my 
keeping." 

"No ! " interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt 
and decisive ; 

" No ; you were angry with me, for speaking so 

frankly and freely. 
It was wrong, I acknowledge ; for it is the fate of a 
woman ess 

Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost 

that is speechless, 
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its 
silence. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 49 

Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women 
Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers 
Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, un- 
seen, and unfruitful, eeo 
Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and pro- 
fitless murmurs." 
Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the 

lover of women : 
" Heaven forbid it, Priscilla ; and truly they seem to 

me always 
More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden 

of Eden, 
More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of 

Havilah flowing, 665 

Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet of 

the garden I " 
*' Ah, by these words, I can see," again interrupted 

the maiden, 
" How very little you prize me, or care for what I am 

saying. 
When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with 

secret misgiving. 
Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and 

kindness, 670 

Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and 

direct and in earnest. 
Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with 

flattering phrases. 
This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best 

that is in you ; 

669. Compare Coleridge, — 

" Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Throusfh caverns measureless to man, 
Down to a sunless sea " 

Vision ofKubla Khan, 



60 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW, 

For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature 
is noble, 

Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level. 675 

Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps 
the more keenly 

If you say aught that implies I am only as one among 
many. 

If you make use of those common and complimentary 
phrases 

Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with 
women. 

But which women reject as insipid, if not as insult- 
ing." 680 

Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and 
looked at Priscilla, 

Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more di- 
vine in her beauty. 

He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of 
another, 

Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in 
vain for an answer. 

So the maiden went on, and little divined or im- 
agined 685 

What was at work in his heart, that made him so 
awkward and speechless. 

" Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we 
think, and in all things 

Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred profes, 
sions of friendship. 

It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare 
it: 

I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak with 
you always. «• 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 51 

So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted to 

hear you 
Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the 

Captain Miles Standish. 
For I must tell you the truth : much more to me is 

your friendship 
Than all the love he could give, were he twice the 

hero you think him." 
Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly 

grasped it, 695 

Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching and 

bleeding so sorely, 
Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with 

a voice full of feeling : 
" Yes, we must ever be friends ; and of all who offer 

you friendship 
Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and 

dearest I " 

• 

Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of 
the Mayflower 700 

Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the hori- 
zon. 

Homeward together they walked, with a strange, in- 
definite feeling, 

That all the rest had departed and left them alone in 
the desert. 

But, as they went through the fields in the blessing 
and smile of the sunshine. 

Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very 
archly : 705 

^ Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit 
of the Indians, 

Where he is happier far than he would be command- 
ing a household. 



62 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that hap. 
pened between you, 

When you returned last night, and said how ungrate- 
ful you found me." 

Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the 
whole of the story, — tiq 

Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of 
Miles Standish. 

Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laugh- 
ing and earnest, 

" He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a moment I " 

But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how he had 
suffered, — 

How he had even determined to sail that day in the 
Mayflower, 715 

And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers 
that threatened, — 

All her manner was changed, and she said with a fal- 
tering accent, 

" Truly I thank you for this : how good you have been 
to me always ! " 

Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem 

journeys. 
Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly 

backward, 720 

Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of 

contrition ; 
Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advan> 

cing. 
Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his 

longings. 
Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld by remorse. 

f ul misgivings. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 68 

VII. 
THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH. 

Meanwhile tlie stalwart Miles Standish was marcliing 

steadily northward, 725 

Winding through forest and swamp, and along the 

trend of the sea-shore, 
All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger 
Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous 

odor of powder 
Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents 

of the forest. 
Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his 
1^. discomfort ; 730 

ir He who was used to success, and to easy victories 

always, 
Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by 

a maiden. 
Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom 

most he had trusted ! 
Ah ! 't was too much to be borne, and he fretted and 

chafed in his armor ! 

" I alone am to blame," he muttered, " for mine was 

the folly. 735 

What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and gray 

in the harness, 
Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the wooing 

of maidens ? 
'T was but a dream, — let it pass, — let it vanish like 

so many others ! 
What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is 

worthless ; 



64 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, 
and henceforward 743 

Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and wooer of dan- 
gers." 

Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and dis- 
comfort, 

While he was marching by day or lying at night in 
the forest, 

Looking up at the trees and the constellations beyond 
them. 

After a three days* march he came to an Indian 
encampment 7« 

Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and 
the forest ; 

Women at work by the tents, and warriors, horrid 
with war-paint, 

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking to- 
gether ; 

Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach 
of the white men. 

Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and sabre and 
musket, 750 

Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among 
them advancing, 

Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as 
a present ; 

Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there 
was hatred. 

745. The poet has taken his material for this expedition of 
Standish's from the report in Winslow's Relation of Standish^s 
Expedition against the Indians of Weymouth, and the breaking up 
of Weston's Colony at that place^ in March, 1623, as given in Dr. 
Young's Chronicles. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 55 

Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers, gigantic 

in stature. 
Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of 

Bashan ; 755 

One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called 

Wattawamat. 
Round their necks were suspended their knives in 

scabbards of wampum. 
Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as 

a needle. 
Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and 

crafty. 
" Welcome, English ! " they said, — these words they 

had learned from the traders 76o 

Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer 

for peltries. 
Then in their native tongue they began to parley with 

Standish, 
Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend 

of the white man. 
Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for mus- 
kets and powder, 
Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the 

plague, in his cellars, 765 

Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red 

man ! 
But when Standish refused, and said he would give 

them the Bible, 
Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and 

to bluster. 
Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of 

the other, 
And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to 

the Captain : tto 



56 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

"Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the 

Captain, 
Angry is he in his heart ; but the heart of the brave 

Wattawamat 
Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a wo- 
man, 
But on a mountain, at night, from an oak-tree riven 

by lightning. 
Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons 

about him, 775 

Shouting, ' Who is there here to fight with the brave 

Wattawamat?'" 
Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade 

on his left hand, 
Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the 

handle. 
Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister 

meaning : 
*' I have another at home, with the face of a man on 

the handle ; 780 

By and by they shall marry ; and there will be plenty 

of children ! " 

775. " Among the rest Wituwamat bragged of the excellency 
of his knife. On the end of the handle there was pictured a 
woman's face ; 'but,' said he, ' I have another at home where- 
with I have killed both French and English, and that hath a 
man's face on it, and by and by these two must marry.' Fur- 
ther he said of that knife he there had, Hinnaim namen, hinnaim 
micJien, matta cuts ; that is to say, By and by it should see, and 
by and by it should eat, but not speak. Also Pecksuot, being a 
man of greater stature than the captain, told him, though he 
were a great captain, yet he was but a little man ; and, said he, 
though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and 
couraore." Winslow's Relation. The poet turns the whole inci- 
dent of Standish's parley and killing of the Indians into a more 
open and brave piece of conduct than the chronicle admits. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 57 

Tlien stood Pecksuot forth, self- vaunting, insulting 

Miles Standish ; 
While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung 

at his bosom, 
Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back^ 

as he muttered, 
" By and by it shall see ; it shall eat ; ah, ha ! but 

shall speak not ! 785 

I This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent 

to destroy us ! 
He is a little man ; let him go and work with the 

women ! " 

Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures 

of Indians 
Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the 

forest, 
Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their 

bow-strings, 790 

Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of 

their ambush. 
But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated 

them smoothly ; 
So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days 

of the fathers. 
But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt 

and the insult. 
All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of 

Thurston de Standish, 795 

Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins 

of his temples. 
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his 

knife from its scabbard. 
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the 

savage 



58 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness 

upon it. 
Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound 

of the war-whoop, soo 

And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of 

December, 
Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery 

arrows. 
Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud 

came the lightning. 
Out of the lightning thunder ; and death unseen ran 

before it. 
Frightened the savages fled for shelter in swamp and 

in thicket, 80£ 

Hotly pursued and beset ; but their sachem, the brave 

Wattawamat, 
Fled not ; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had 

a bullet 
Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands 

clutching the greensward, 
Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of 

his fathers. 

There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors 
lay, and above them, sio 

Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of 
the white man. 

811. " Hobbamock stood by all this time as a spectator, and 
meddled not, observing how our men demeaned themselves in 
this action. All being hero ended, smiling, he brake forth into 
these speeches to the Captain : ' Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging 
of his own strength and stature, said, though you were a great 
captain, yet you were but a little man ; but to-day I see you are 
big enough to lay him on the ground.' '* Winslow's Relation, 



\ 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 69 

Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain 

of Plymouth : 
" Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his 

strength and his stature, — 
Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little 

man ; but I see now 
Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before 

you ! " 815 

Thus the first battle was fought and won by the 

stalwart Miles Standish. 
When the tidings thereof were brought to the village 

of Plymouth, 
And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wat- 

tawamat 
Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once 

was a church and a fortress. 
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and 

took courage. 820 

Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of 

terror, 
Thanking God in her heart that she had not married 

Miles Standish ; 
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his 

battles, 
He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and re- 
ward of his valor. 

818. " Now was the Captain returned and received with joy, 
the head being brought to the fort, and there set up." Wins- 
low's Relation. The custom of exposing the heads of offenders 
in this way was familiar enough to the Plymouth people before 
they left England. As late as the year 1747 the heads of the 
lords who were concerned in the Scot's Rebellion were set up 
orer Temple Bar, in London. 



60 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

vm. 

THE SPINNING WHEEL. 

Month after montli passed away, and in autumn the 

ships of the merchants 826 

Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn 

for the Pilgrims. 
All in the village was peace ; the men were intent on 

their labors. 
Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and 

with merestead. 
Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass 

in the meadows. 
Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer in 

the forest. 830 

All in the village was peace ; but at times the rumor 

of warfare 
Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of 

danger. 
Bravely the stalwart Standish was scouring the land 

with his forces, 
Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien ar- 
mies. 
Till his name had become a sound of fear to the 

nations. 835 

825. The poet again has moved the narrative forward, taking 
Standish's return from his expedition as the date from which 
after events are measured. The Anne and the Little James 
came at the beginning of August, 1623. 

838o Mere or meare in Old English is boundary, and mere- 
stead becomes the bounded lot. The first entry in the records 
of Plymouth Colony is an incomplete list of " The Meersteads 
and Garden-plotes of those which came first, layed out, 1620." 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 61 

Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse 
and contrition 

Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate out- 
break, 

Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of a 
river, 

Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter and 
brackish. 

Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new 

habitation, 84o 

Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the firs 

of the forest. 
Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered 

with rushes ; 
Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were 

of paper. 
Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were ex- 
cluded. 
There too he dug a well, and around it planted an 
orchard : 845 

Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well 
and the orchard. 
843. When the Fortune, which visited the colony in Novem- 
ber, 1621, returned to England, Edward Wiuslow wrote by it a 
letter of advice to those who were thinking of emigrating to 
America, in which he says, "Bring paper and linseed oil for 
your windows." Glass windows were long considered a great 
luxury. When the Duke of Northumberland, in Elizabeth's 
time, left Alnwick Castle to come to London for the winter, 
the few glass windows which formed one of the luxuries of the 
castle were carefully taken out and laid away, perhaps carried 
to London to adorn the city residence. 

846. The Alden family still retain John Alden's homestead 
in Duxbury, and the present house is said to stand on the site 
of the one originally built there. 



62 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and 
secure from annoyance, 

Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to Al- 
den's allotment 

In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night- 
time 

Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet 
pennyroyal. ssc 

Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet 

would the dreamer 
Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the 

house of Priscilla, 
Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of 

fancy. 
Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance 

of friendship. 
Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls 

of his dwelling ; 855 

Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of 

his garden ; 
Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on 

Sunday 
Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in 

the Proverbs, — 
How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her 

always. 
How all the days of her life she will do him good, and 

not evil, seo 

How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh 

with gladness, 
How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth 

the distaff, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH. 63 

How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her 

household, 
Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet 

cloth of her weaving ! 

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the 
Autumn, 865 

Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexter- 
ous fingers, 

As if the thread she was spinning V7ere that of his life 

»and his fortune. 
After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of 

the spindle. 
" Truly, Priscilla," he said, " when I see you spinning 

and spinning, 
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of 

others, 870 

Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in 

a moment ; 
You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful 

Spinner." 
Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and 

I swifter ; the spindle 

Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short 
in her fingers ; 
While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mis- 
chief, continued : 875 
*'You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen 
of Helvetia ; 
She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of 
Southampton, 
872. The legend of Bertha is given with various learning re- 
garding it in a monograph entitled, Bertha die Spinneririf by Karl 



64 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o'er valley and 

meadow and mountain, 
Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to 

her saddle. 
She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed 

into a proverb. sso 

So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel 

shall no longer 
Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers 

with music. 
Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was 

in their childhood. 
Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla 

the spinner ! " 
Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan 

maiden, m 

Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose 

praise was the sweetest, 
Di'cw from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her 

spinning. 
Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering 

phrases of Alden : 
" Come, you must not be idle ; if I am a pattern for 

housewives. 
Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of 

husbands. 890 

Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready 

for knitting ; 
Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have 

changed and the manners. 
Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times 

of John Alden I " 
Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands 

she adjusted, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 65 

He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended 
before him, 895 

She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread 
from his fingers. 

Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of hold- 
ing, 

Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled 
expertly 

Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares — for how could 
she help it ? — 

Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his 
body. 900 

Lo ! in the midst of this scene, a breathless messen- 
ger entered. 

Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from the 
village. 

Yes ; Miles Standish was dead ! — an Indian had 
brought them the tidings, — 

Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of 
the battle. 

Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of 
his forces ; 905 

All the town would be burned, and all the people be 
murdered ! 

Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts 
of the hearers. 

Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking 
backward 

StiU at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in 
horror ; 

But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the ar- 
row 910 



66 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Piercing tlie heart of his friend had struck his own, 

and had sundered 
Once and forever the bonds that held him hound as a 

captive, 
Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of 

his freedom, 
Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he 

was doing, 
Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of 

Priscilla, 916 

Pressing her close to his heart, as forever his own, 

and exclaiming : 
" Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put 

them asunder ! " 

Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate 

sources, 
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, 

and pursuing 
Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and 

nearer, 920 

Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the 

forest ; 
So these lives that had run thus far in separate chan- 
nels. 
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and 

flowing asunder. 
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and 

nearer. 
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the 

other. m 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH, 67 

IX. 

THE WEDDING-DAT. 

Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of 
purple and scarlet, 

Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his garments 
resplendent, 

Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his fore- 
head. 

Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and pome- 
granates. 

Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapor 
beneath him 930 

1^ Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his feet 
I /"""•". 

This was the wedding morn of PrisciUa the Puri- 
tan maiden. 

Friends were assembled together ; the Elder and 
Magistrate also 

Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like 
the Law and the Gospel, 

One with the sanction of earth and one with the bless- 
ing of heaven. 935 

Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth 
and of Boaz. 

Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words 
of betrothal, 

Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magis- 
trate's presence, 

927. For a description of the Jewish high-priest and his 
dress, see Exodus, chapter xxviii. 



68 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

After the Puritan way, and tlie laudable custom of 

Holland. 
Fervently tlien and devoutly, the excellent Elder of 

Plymouth 94t 

Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded 

that day in affection, 
Speaking of life and of death, and imploring Divine 

benedictions. 

Lo ! when the service was ended, a form appeared 
on the threshold. 

Clad in armor of steel, a sombre and sorrowful 
figure ! 

Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the 
strange apparition ? 945 

Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on 
his shoulder ? 

Is it a phantom of air, — a bodiless, spectral illu- 
sion ? 

Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid 
the betrothal ? 

Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, un- 
welcomed ; 

Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an ex- 
pression 950 

Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart 
hidden beneath them, 

939. " May 12 was the first marriage in this place, which, 
according to the laudable custome of the Low-Cuntries, in which 
they had lived, was thought most requisite to be performed by 
the magistrate, as being a civill thing, upon which many ques- 
tions aboute inheritances doe depende, with other things most 
proper to their cognizans, and most consonante to the scripturs, 
Ruth 4, and no wher found in the gospell to be layed on the 
ministers as a part of their office." Bradford's History y p. 101. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 69 

As when across the sky the driving rack of the rain 
cloud 

Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by its 
brightness. 

Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but 
was silent, 

As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting inten- 
tion. 955 

But when were ended the troth and the prayer and 
the last benediction, 

Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with 
amazement 

Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain 
of Plymouth! 

Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with emotion, 
" Forgive me ! 

I have been angry and hurt, — too long have I cher- 
ished the feeling ; 960 

I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God I it 
is ended. 

Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of 
Hugh Standish, 

Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for 
error. 

952. Rack, a Shaksperian word, used possibly in two senses, 
either as vapor, as in the thirty-third sonnet, — 

"Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
With ugly rack on his celestial face," 

which is plainly the meaning here, or as a light, cirrus cloud, as 
in the Tempest, Act IV. Scene 1 : — 

*' Aud like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind," 

although here, also, the meaning of vapor might be admissible. 
Bacon has defined rack : "The winds, which wave the clouds 
above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below, pass 
without noise." 



70 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend 

of John Alden." 
Thereupon answered the bridegroom : " Let all be 

forgotten between us, — 965 

All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow 

older and dearer ! " 
Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Pris- 

cilla, 
Gravely, and after the manner of old-fashioned gentry 

in England, 
Something of camp and of court, of town and of 

country, commingled, 
Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding 

her husband. 970 

Then he said with a smile : " I should have remem- 
bered the adage, — 
If you would be well served, you must serve yourself ; 

and moreover, 
No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of 

Christmas ! " 

Great was the people's amazement, and greater yet 
their rejoicing. 

Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their 
Captain, 975 

Whom they had mourned as dead ; and they gathered 
and crowded about him, 

Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and 
of bridegroom. 

Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupt- 
ing the other. 

Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpow- 
ered and bewildered. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 71 

He had rather by far break into an Indian encamp- 
ment, 980 

Than come again to a wedding to which he had not 
been invited. 

Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood 
with the bride at the doorway, 

Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beauti- 
ful morning. 

Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in 
the sunshine, 

Lay extended before them the land of toil and priva- 
tion ; 98S 

There were the graves of the dead, and the barren 
waste of the sea-shore. 

There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and the 
meadows ; 

But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Gar- 
den of Eden, 

Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the 
sound of the ocean. 

^L Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and 
^H| stir of departure, 990 

^Briends coming forth from the house, and impatient 
^P of longer delaying. 

Each with his plan for the day, and the work that was 

left uncompleted. 
Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of 

wonder, 
Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud 

of Priscilla, 
Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of 
its master. *9S 



^ 



72 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nos- 
trils, 

Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for 
a saddle. 

She should not walk, he said, through the dust and 
heat of the noonday ; 

Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like 
a peasant. 

Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the 
others, looo 

Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand 
of her husband, 

Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her pal- 
frey. 

"Nothing is wanting now," he said with a smile, "but 
the distaff ; 

Then you would be in truth my queen, my beautiful 
Bertha ! " 

Onward the bridal procession now moved to their 
new habitation, 1005 

Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing to- 
gether. 

Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the 
ford in the forest, 

Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of 
love through its bosom, 

Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depths of the 
azure abysses. 

Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring 
his splendors, 1010 

Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above 
them suspended. 

Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the 
pine and the fir-tree, 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 78 

Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley 
of Eshcol. 

Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral 
ages, 

Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Re- 
becca and Isaac, loie 

Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful 
always. 

Love immortal and young in the endless succession of 
lovers. 

So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the 
bridal procession. 



I 



[Miles Standish was not inconsolable. In the Fortune came a 
certain Barbara, whose last name is unknown, whom Standish 
married. He had six children, and many of his descendants are 

living.] 

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that ilings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 5 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 
hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 30 

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped Ms growing shell. 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed I 



74 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Year after year beteld tlie silent toil tt 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 20 

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no 
more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 25 

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on my ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll I 80 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
Till thou at length art free. 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting* 
seal 85 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

[Author's Note. — According to the mythology of the Ro- 
mancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which 
Jesus Christ partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was 
brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained 
there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years, in 
the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon 
those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and 
deed ; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the 
Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite en- 
terprise of the Knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. 
Sir Galahad was at last successful in jQnding it, as may be read 
in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Ten- 
nyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most ex- 
quisite of his poems. 

The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of 
the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I 
have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miracu- 
lous cup in such a manner as to include not only other persons 
than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time 
subsequent to the supposed date of King Arthur's reign.] 



PRELUDE TO PART FIRST. 

Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his 
lay: 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 5 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 



230* JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 
Along the wavering vista of his dream. 



Not only around our infancy 

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; M 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies ; is 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 20 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, 

We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 25 

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 

9. In allusion to Wordsworth's 

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy," 

in his ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early 
Childhood. 

27. In the Middle Ages kings and noblemen had in their 
courts jesters to make sport for the company ; as every one then 
wore a dress indicating his rank or occupation, so the jester wore 
a cap hung with bells. The fool of Shakespeare's plays is the 
king's jester at his best. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 231 

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking : 

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'T is only God may be had for the asking ; 30 

No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, as 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 40 
And, groping blindly above it for light. 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 45 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 50 

And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and 

sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,— 55 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

Now is the high-tide of the year. 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 



232 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; eo 

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green 5 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 65 

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear. 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 70 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing. 
That the river is bluer than the sky. 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back. 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 75 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer. 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 

Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; so 

Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upward striving ; * 

'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'T is the natural way of living : 8^ 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed. 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes of the season's youth, m 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 233 

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow ? » 



PART FIRST. 



" My golden spurs now bring to me, 

And bring to me my richest mail. 
For to-morrow I go over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail ; 
Shall never a bed for me be spread, loe 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 
Till I begin my vow to keep ; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep. 
And perchance there may come a vision true 
Ere day create the world anew." io5 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 

Slumber fell like a cloud on him. 
And into his soul the vision flew. 

II. 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 

In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, uo 
The little birds sang as if it were 
The one day of summer in all the year, 

And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees ; 

The castle alone in the landscape lay 

Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray ; n5 

'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, 

And never its gates might opened be, 

Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 



234 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Summer besieged it on every side, 

But the churlisli stone her assaults defied, 120 

She could not scale the chilly wall, 

Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 

Stretched left and right, 

Over the hills and out of sight ; 

Green and broad was every tent, 125 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 



III. 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang. 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, iso 

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long. 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 135 

Had cast them forth : so, young and strong. 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf. 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail. 
To seek in aU climes for the Holy Grail. 



IV. 

It was morning on hill and stream and tree, m 

And morning in the young knight's heart ; 

Only the castle moodily 

Eebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free. 
And gloomed by itself apart ,• 

The season brimmed all other things up i45 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 235 



As Sir Launf al made morn through the darksome gate, 

He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; iso 

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 155 

Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 



VI. 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 

'' Better to me the poor man's crust, leo 

Better the blessing of the poor. 

Though I turn me empty from his door ; 

That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 

He gives only the worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; 165 

But he who gives but a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — - 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, I7fl 

The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 



236 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 



PRELUDE TO PAET SECOND. 

Down swept tlie chill wind from the mountain peak, 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; m 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold, 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek ; 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleaf ed boughs and pastures bare ; iso 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 185 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, m 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 195 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 

And hung them thickly with diamond drops, 200 

174. Note the different moods that are indicated by the two 
preludes. The one is of June, the other of snow and winter. 
By these preludes the poet, like an organist, strikes a key which 
he holds in the sulbsequent part. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 237 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 

And made a star of every one : 

No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 

'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 205 

In his depths serene through the summer day, 

Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly. 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap. 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 220 

And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 

204. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II., in a magnificent 
freak, built a palace of ice, which was a nine-days' wonder. 
Cowper has given a poetical description of it in The Task, Book 
V. lines 131-176. 

216. The Yule-log was anciently a huge log burned at the feast 
of Juul by our Scandinavian ancestors in honor of the god Thor. 
Juul-tid corresponded in time to Christmas tide, and when Chris- 
tian festivities took the place of pagan, many ceremonies re- 
mained. The great log, still called the Yule-log, was dragged 
in and burned in the fireplace after Thor had been forgotten. 



238 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

But the wind without was eager and sharp, 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings, 
Singing, in dreary monotone, 
A Christmas carol of its own. 
Whose burden still, as he might guess. 
Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold. 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
Against the drift of the cold. 



PART SECOND. 



There was never a leaf on bush or tree, wo 

The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun ; 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 245 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, 
As if her veins were sapless and old. 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 

II. 

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, aso 

For another heir in the earldom sate ; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 2S9 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail. 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 

Little lie recked of bis earldom's loss, 

No more on bis surcoat was blazoned the cross, 255 

But deep in bis soul tbe sign be wore, 

Tbe badge of tbe suffering and tbe poor. 

III. 

Sir Launfal's raiment tbin and spare 

Was idle mail 'gainst tbe barbed air. 

For it was just at tbe Christmas time ; 260 

So be mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 

And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 

In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 265 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 

He can count the camels in the sun. 

As over tbe red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass. 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 270 

And with its own self like an infant played, 

And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

" For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " — 

The happy camels may reach the spring, 

But Sir Launfal sees only the grew some thing, 275 

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 

That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 

And white as tbe ice-isles of Northern seas. 

In the desolate horror of his disease. 



240 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 

Y. 
And Sir Launfal said, — "I beliold in thee 280 

An image of Him who died on the tree ; 
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — 
And to thy life were not denied 

The wounds in the hands and feet and side : 235 

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 
Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! '* 

VI. 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 

He had flung an alms to leprosie. 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust, . 295 

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink, 
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, m 

A.nd 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty 
soul. 

VII. 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 

A light shone round about the place ; 

The leper no longer crouched at his side, 

But stood before him glorified, sos 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 241 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 
Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII. 

His words were shed softer than leaves from the 
pine, 310 

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon ; 
And the voice that was softer than silence said, 
" Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! 315 

In many climes, without avail. 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 
Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now ; 
This crust is my body broken for thee, 820 

This water His blood that died on the tree ; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed. 
In whatso we share with another's need : 
Not what we give, but what we share, — 
For the gift without the giver is bare ; 825 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

IX. 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : 
" The Grail in my castle here is found ! 
Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 
Let it be the spider's banquet hall ; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 



The castle gate stands open now. 

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 



330 



242 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

As the hangbird is to tlie elm-tree bough j 

No longer scowl the turrets tall, 
The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 
When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 
She entered with him in disguise, 
And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 
There is no spot she loves so well on ground. 
She lingers and smiles there the whole year round ; 
The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 
Has hall and bower at his command ; 
And there 's no poor man in the North Countree 
But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 

And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 

With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock 
Wore ermine too dear for an earl. 

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree 
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara ^ 
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, 

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, 
And still fluttered down the snow. 

I stood and watched by the window 
The noiseless work of the sky, 

* The marble of Carrara, Italy, is noted for its purity. 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 243 

And tlie sudden flurries of snow-birds, 
Like brown leaves whirling by. 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 

Where a little headstone stood ; 
How the flakes were folding it gently, 

As did robins the babes in the wood. 

Up spoke our own little Mabel, 

Saying, " Father, who makes it snow ? '^ 

And I told of the good All-father 
Who cares for us here below. 

Again I looked at the snow-fall, 

And thought of the leaden sky 
That arched o'er our first great sorrow, 

When that mound was heaped so high. 

I remember the gradual patience 
That fell from that cloud like snow. 

Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 

And again to the child I whispered, 

" The snow that husheth all. 
Darling, the merciful Father 

Alone can make it fall ! " 

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her i 
And she, kissing back, could not know 

That my kiss was given to her sister, 
Folded close under deepening snow. 



THANATOPSIS. 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 6 

Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over the spirit, and sad images lo 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 
Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
To Nature's teachings, while from all around — is 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 2C 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go ai 

To mix for ever with the elements, 
To be a brother to the insensible rock 



38 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send, his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 8ft 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone, nor could st thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, as 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
Kock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods — rivers that move 4o 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green; and, poured round 

all, 
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 45 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death. 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings so 

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness. 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound. 
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there : 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 65 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living, and no friend 



TO A WATERFOWL. 39 

Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe go 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come es 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glide away, the sons of men. 
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — ■ n 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side. 
By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 76 
His chamber in the silent halls of death. 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave. 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch so 

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



TO A WATERFOWL. 

Whither, midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 



40 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 

As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 
Tliy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, ss 

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean-side ? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — u 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. a 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest. 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven as 

Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who, from zone to zone. 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight » 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 



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